Brazilian babes offer England fans FINAL chance to score

As the players and 7,000 supporters arrive in Belo Horizonte with heavy hearts, we’ve unearthed one reason to be cheerful.

Even though England will be out of the World Cup after today’s match against Costa Rica, the city they are visiting has another appeal – women.

Brazil’s fifth largest city is famous for being one of the top places in the world to find single girls.

There are more females than males in the South American country – and in Belo Horizontale, single girls looking for love outnumber the fellas by four to one.

That means visiting English fans stand a much higher chance of getting lucky than their beloved team. So we hit the town to meet up with some of the long-suffering single lad­ies who have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of super-fit footballers and their foreign fans.

Isabela Mello and Paula Lana, both 28 and single, say they have struggled to find a man in Belo Horizonte.

“I’m sorry for the English team but I don’t fancy any of them,” says Isabela. “I think the best-looking team is Spain.

“But I like Prince Harry and I’ve heard he’s coming over to Brazil. Send him a kiss from me!”

Their friend Gabriela Zanotti is the only one in their group dating – but her boyfriend is American, and she ran into him while partying away from home. “It’s difficult to meet men,” she says. “I met my boyfriend Jon­athan in Rio.”

“Wayne Rooney is pretty ugly”

Luiza Porto

In another bar, we meet up with Alt­ieres Naimeg, 32. As the only man in a group of nine women, he certainly looks pleased with himself.

“I’m always the only man in a group like this, it happens all the time,” he says. “The dating market is very difficult for women in Belo Horizonte.

“Tell the English this is the place to come, as there are a lot of beautiful women here.”

As well as specialist beers, this might be enough to take English minds off one reason to hate Belo Horizonte – it’s where we were beaten by the USA in the 1950 World Cup.

The city’s lack of men is so acute that even dating agencies are not able to survive. Radio presenter Olympia Gazel opened a matchmaking service in 1982, but closed two years later due to the ratio of men to women on her books: 20 women for every man.

She reopened the agency in 1992 and now has a more manageable figure: four women for each man.

Bonus

One of the reasons for the problem is thought to be that the kind of jobs most readily available in the city, such as tourism and services, attract more women than men.

Friends Juliana Silveira, 30, and Fernanda Pessoa, 29, are taking advant­age of the World Cup as a chance to meet men from abroad.

Fernanda says: “All the foreign fans are here. The Colombians and the English are the best-looking fans.” Juliana adds: “My favourite is Gerard Piqué from the Spanish team. I wish he was here now! It’s a problem here. Women have to chat men up themselves.” Perhaps that’s a bonus for reserved English fellas.

Bruna Toledo, 30, and Gabriela Fag­undes, 28, may be head to toe in Brazil colours, but they say women every­where in Belo Horizonte are hitting the streets to meet visiting fans.

“Belo Horizonte is the capital of women!” laughs Gabriela. “The women here are beautiful, and most of the tourists coming for the World Cup are men. I’ve never been to Europe, but I would most like to visit Scotland. They have great beer in Scotland.”

Thatiane Oliveira, 28, says she brought her friends Luciana Veloso, also 28, and Camila Andreata, 27, to a street party full of Argentine fans.

“For me, Cristiano Ronaldo is the best-looking player,” she reckons. Young fans Natalia Tostes and Sar­ah Luiza, both 18, are eager for the English to arrive. “We will find out if the English fans are hot on the day of the game,” Natalia says. “But I think the Greek team has the best-looking guys.”

A group of five girls have been out every night during the World Cup. They are all single, except for Luiza Porto, 18, who is unimpressed with the England side. “Wayne Rooney is pretty ugly,” she says.

What about the Scots then? “They are all ginger, and drink a lot of whisky,” she says. Charming!

But her sister Karine Porto, 24, is keener. “We’ve had to wait until the World Cup to meet men,” she says. “We’ve already met a lot of Argentinians, and now the English are coming. Every day is a party!”